I have recently had demonstration over sin, which brings the truth of the above words into full meaning to me. One of the latest recorded utterances of the Master to his followers was, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
It is easy to do like the "sinners" referred to in Luke, 6:32, and "love them which love you;" but promptly to meet the demands of Christian Science, reach the peaceful heights of the Sermon on the Mount, and "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," seems impracticable and out of the question to the mortal sense; and it is often attained by many of us instructed in Truth, only after much fasting and prayer; the peace and joy which come of actually living this precept being perhaps more generally reached to-day, by the tortuous path of suffering, than by the straight and perfect one of Science.
I was in a mortal sense of unrest, and for some time did not discern the error that seemed to bind me. It was finally uncovered in the shape of resentful, uncharitable thoughts held towards one who had appeared unkind, ungrateful, and had apparently despitefully used and persecuted. I was thus led by error, by returning evil for evil and thereby perpetuating it, instead of quickly overcoming and destroying with the two-edged sword of Truth and Love. Darkness was still trying to urge on me the use of a worthless carnal weapon which could only bring defeat, instead of that one revealed by light, which alone is "mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." I had expressed nothing resentful or uncharitable in word or deed, but had allowed these enemies to enter and dwell in my thought. I was in the common illusion of mankind, of looking on evil as belonging to personality, and having power and reality; instead of knowing, as Science teaches, that it is only an impersonal false claimant to existence, designated as mortal mind, but being not of Good or God, and therefore having neither power nor reality in the divine Mind.
